Lively, entertaining reviews of, and essays on, old and newer films and everything relating to them, written by professional author William Schoell.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005)

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005). Director: Steven Spielberg.

I've never been overly impressed by most of Spielberg's films, but I have to admit he knocked one out of the ball park with this impressive adaptation of H. G. Well's wonderful novel. This compares favorably to George Pal's 1953 version. Updated to modern times, this details what happens when meteors fall all over the Earth and unleash tripods [with martians inside] that destroy or capture human beings. Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) does his best to protect his daughter, Rachel (Dakota Fanning) as some truly horrifying events, including an attack on a boat full of people, happen all around them. There are excellent special effects and also some pretty creepy and scary aliens on view. Well-acted [by Cruise, Tim Robbins in a supporting part, and others] and very well-directed by Spielberg. My only quibble is that some may feel that two hours of a little girl being terrorized doesn't add up to entertainment, but Spielberg always feels compelled to put children in danger in his movies.

Luckily I watched this on my brand new spanking high definition TrueTheater widescreen computer monitor and it looked just great. But I had to go out and completely replace my DVD collection -- old movies transferred from TV just don't cut it in high definition. But you7 should enjoy this even on a regular TV as the DVD is letterboxed.

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